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Lagos-headquartered commercial and industrial (C&I) developer Rensource has closed a $15m debt finance facility with Afrigreen’s Debt Impact Fund.

Sibanye-Stillwater is investing in wind and solar procurement to power its operations across South Africa, as the mining and metals multinational seeks to offset poor electricity supply from state utility Eskom and achieve decarbonisation targets.

London- and Toronto-listed Endeavour Mining has started construction of a 37MWp solar PV plant, with 16MW of storage, at Senegal’s largest gold mine, as it further develops the Sabodala-Massawa resource. The West Africa-focused miner also reports progress on its 225kV transmission line in Côte d’Ivoire

French uranium miner Orano’s Orano Mining Namibia (OMN) subsidiary said construction work has started at the first phase of the Sorexa solar PV project that will supply its Erongo Desalination Plant (EDP), sited 35km north of Swakopmund. Sorexa is planned to be scaled up, with future phases supplying other commercial and industrial offtakers in Namibia.    

After commissioning the Motheo copper mine, ASX-listed Sandfire Resources is pushing ahead with plans to expand production, which will include adding solar power and battery energy storage capacity.

Harmony Gold Mining Company has commissioned three solar PV plants in Lejweleputswa, Free State province. The South African plants are the first part of a wider renewable energy programme and are expected to reduce the mining group’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 65,000t in the first year of operation.

The Red Sea Power (RSP) Ghoubet wind plant has been commissioned. The $122m project is Djibouti’s first utility-scale independent power producer (IPP) and its first on-grid renewable energy plant. African Energy takes a look at the potential impact of the plant, which represents the first steps towards achieving the government’s energy transition goals.

Canada-headquartered WATT Renewable Corporation has secured $13m in funding from Oslo-based Empower New Energy. The funds will be used to solarise 225 telecoms towers across Nigeria, reducing diesel consumption in the sector

Construction work has begun on two solar PV plants with a combined capacity of 30MW being built for cement manufacturer PPC Zimbabwe. 

African Energy Live Data started consistently monitoring power project pipelines across the continent eight years ago. An analysis of the figures for South Africa shows a tragic lost opportunity in the shape of many gigawatts of potential renewable generation capacity with no foreseeable chance of being connected to the grid.

National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s approval of an electricity trading licence for the ambitious Anglo-American/EDF joint venture Envusa Energy highlights the growing role of traders in the electricity supply market.

South Africa-headquartered Sustainable Power Solutions, Namibian property developer Fortitude and the Oelofse family are collaborating to develop a solar PV plant at Maxwell farm to supply electricity to B2Gold’s Otjikoto mine via a wheeling deal with NamPower.

Robert Friedland’s High Power Exploration (HPX) plans to develop a rail line to take iron ore from its Nimba licence in south-eastern Guinea to a deep-water port at Didia in Liberia. It is the second major Mano River region iron ore rail announcement in recent months following the giant Simandou scheme, and promises to increase demand for electricity from Côte d’Ivoire’s hydroelectric plants.

C&I specialist CrossBoundary Energy (CBE) is to finance and build a hybrid solar, battery energy storage and thermal plant for FG Gold’s Baomahun project in Sierra Leone. Situated in the Valunia and Kunike Barina chiefdoms of the Bo and Tonkolili districts, Baomahun will be the country’s first large-scale gold mine.

Mining companies are planning to cut thousands of jobs in response to negative domestic and international factors, which could cause wider economic problems and difficulties for the government in the run-up to the late May general election. Critical minerals offer huge potential, but structural constraints weigh heavy on investors.